The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1887-03-18

| Hazard Captain Eads' daughter, dated at
| Nassau Saturday last, in which Captain
Eads wassaid to be suffering from conges-
ton of the lungs and to be so low that there
was little likelihood of his recovery.
Captain Eads took a heavy cold last De-
| cember and went to Lakewood, n j.,
where his health was improving when he
/ was called to Washington on business con-
nected with the Tehuantepec Ship Railway
| bill He returned to New York January
% SO feeble that DR.. Helmulth at once or
dered him to Nassau, and he sailed for the
Bahamas February with his wife and
Mrs. Hazard.
| [Captain James B. Eads was sixty-seven
| years of age. He was born in Lawrenceburg,
| Ind, May %, 1920, and with his parents went to
ST. Louis in 1885, He was emphatically a self
made man, having left school at the age of thir-
teen at which age he began as clerk in dry
| goods store. He evinced a disposition to be
| an engineer while in this business. All his
| spare time was devoted to mathematics
pertaining to the object which he had re-
| solved to master. In 1912 he constructed div
| ing-bell boat to recover cargoes of sunken
steamers. In 1915 he erected at ST. Louis the
| first glass works west of the Ohio river. In
| 1856 he made proposition to the Government
| to remove the snags and wrecks which then
| Ohio and Arkansas rivers. This passed the
| lower branch of Congress in 1857 but want
| OF time prevented action by the Senate.
| On the invitation, in 1861, of President Lin
| coin, Mr.. Eads designed and constructed
powerful squadron of eight steamers de-
| signed for use on the Mississippi, having
speed of nine knots an hour, and aggre-
eating 5000 tons. These were ready. fully
| equipped and plated, within 100 days from the
| time he received notice to do the work They
were the first iron-clad vessels constructed by
the Government. In 1923 he designed and
constructed six turreted iron vessels, all heavi-
ly plated. In 1874 he designed and construct.
| ed the great steel-arched bridge over the Mis-
sissippi river at ST. Louis. This work is re-
| nowned among the great engineering feats OF
| the century, and its construction was regarded
at the time by scientific men as the solution of
great problem in the engineering world.
The browning work of his life was that OF
deepening the m outh of the Mississippi river.
| I'his was in 1874. His plans for this work met
with strenuous opposition from Government
engineers, but Captain Eads succeeded in hav-
| ing them adopted by proposing to do the work
without remuneration until he showed Congress
that his work was accomplished and practical
Permission was granted in 1875, and in June OF
that year the construction of what was then and
is still known as the 'jetties was begun, and
the completion of the work as he had planned
it was accomplished.
In 1879 MI. Eads proposed his ship railway
| across the American isthmus. It is Familiarity
known to the American public as the Tehuante-
pee or Nicaragua Ship railway. The scheme
received the Endorsement of Congress during
the session just closed. In the month of Au-
gust, 1884, he was awarded the Albert medal by
the Society of Arts in England, in recognition
Of the valuable aid which his services have rem
dered to the commerce of the world.1